‘We Can’t Be Quiet on This One’: Silicon Valley Women on Why They’re Marching against Trump

Numerous women from the Bay Area will fly to Washington D.C. for a Jan. 21 protest of Donald Trump's misogyny and proposed policies. (Photo by Andrew Cline, via Shutterstock.com)

Marilyn Cartwright shows me her phone case, which isn’t glitzy or cute—instead, it’s decorated with a tank she helped design. The “armored multi-purpose vehicle” is desert-tan and hulking, with giant chains on the wheels and the red symbol for medical aid painted on the side. The 61-year-old has worked in the defense industry for 35 years, ever since moving to San Jose with an engineering degree. “If a plane crashes,” she says, “I could probably tell you why.”

The only protest she’s ever been to was at the previous Mercury News headquarters in the mid-’80s, when she and her co-workers picketed over the paper’s coverage of a military vehicle they’d built. That’s about to change.

On Jan. 21, the day after Donald Trump is sworn in as president of the United States, Cartwright will join an expected 200,000 protesters at the Women’s March on Washington D.C. San Jose will host its own satellite march that day, from City Hall to the Plaza de César Chávez, and similar marches are planned for Santa Cruz, Oakland and San Francisco. A cohort of South Bay women, terrified that Trump will reverse decades of progress on women’s rights, will fly more than 2,800 miles across the country to express their dissent in person at the Capitol.

Besides repealing Obamacare, which provides 47 million women with access to health insurance, Trump has promised to defund Planned Parenthood and said he’d fill Supreme Court seats with justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1974 case that established abortion rights. As Indiana governor, Vice President-elect Mike Pence led a crusade against abortion rights. In 2015, he signed a law forcing women to have “fetus funerals.” That same year in Pence’s Indiana, Purvi Patel became the first woman in the state to be convicted of feticide. Patel’s conviction has since been overturned, but her case remains a flashpoint in the national conversation about reproductive rights.

Cartwright’s 85-year-old mother, a former schoolteacher in Arlington, Virginia, is too frail to join her daughter at the march, so she’ll contribute in another way. “I told my mom about the Pussy Hat project,” Cartwright says.

“Excuse me?” I’d heard of the concept—women are knitting hats in the shape of vulvas for marchers to wear—but I hadn’t expected to hear the word from Cartwright’s mouth.

“She has arthritis,” Cartwright says, “and she said she’ll knit them as long as her hands can stand it.”

Cartwright is no hippie. In an Eeyore sweatshirt near her old office building in north San Jose, she sits stone-faced when talking about her experiences as a woman in an almost entirely male field. One former boss asked her to file papers instead of analyze design failures, as she’d been hired to do. Another assigned her, the only female staffer, to clean the office. And then another tried to fire her when she brought her breastfeeding baby on a business trip, despite her arrangements for childcare. “We have come so far, and I will not go backwards,” Cartwright says. “I’ve fought so hard, not to make it better for myself, but for all the women afterwards.”

Other South Bay women flying to the march share her resolve, especially those in the male-dominated tech industry who have struggled with sexism in the workplace. They had hoped Hillary Clinton’s decades of experience would break the country's highest glass ceiling and were devastated when an ignorant Twitter troll bullied his way past her.

Donald Trump's comments about women, as well as who he’s picked to fill out his administration, have put people on high alert. (Photo by llewellynchin, via Shutterstock.com)

Margot Nack, 44, felt “physically ill” on election night. “You live in a bubble, and the bubble popped,” she says. The lavender-haired manager at Adobe and mentor for Girls Who Code booked her plane ticket two days later, then formed a Slack channel to coordinate with 12 local friends who also plan to fly to D.C.

“It’s pretty lonely in product development. There’s a lot of unconscious bias,” she says. “Male engineers don’t mean to be exclusionary, but women drop out of those fields.”

For Nack, the march is an opportunity to have her voice heard. “I’ve always had a big mouth,” she says. “On every elementary school report card, it said, ‘Margot talks too much.’ Maybe now that’s not a bad thing.”

Before Amy Bayersdorfer, 50, left her job as a tech consultant to work for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in Michigan, she’d had only one female boss in 30 years in Silicon Valley. “I have friends founding startups who were told, ‘Oh, sweetheart, why don’t you go start a lifestyle business?’” Bayersdorfer made her plane reservations for the march right away. “We can’t be quiet on this one,” she says. As a field organizer in a blue-collar county outside of Detroit, she spent months talking to former autoworkers who eventually voted for Trump. “What people want is safety, economic opportunity, and for people to care about their community,” Bayersdorfer says, “but that can mean different things to different people.”

Trump supporters aren’t just “different people,” though. In many case, they’re our people. Jane Burgunder, 50, knows one Trump supporter extremely well: her mother. Nonetheless, she was still shocked by the election results.

“The beliefs feel familiar, but I didn’t know it was half the country,” says Burgunder, a landscape designer who lives in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood. “Going to a big march in Sacramento might have been more convenient, but I have the means. I could charge [the plane ticket], and I’m healthy. All I really want is to be a body there, since my vote didn’t matter.”

Like other South Bay women flying to the march, Burgunder’s children influenced her decision to travel. After Trump’s win, her 10-year-old daughter was distraught. “She said, ‘I guess girls really aren’t as good as boys after all,’ and that made me cry,” Burgunder says.

“Election night was the worst party I’d ever been to in my entire life,” says Robyn Stanton, 55, a Palo Alto lawyer who will bring her 15-year-old daughter to the D.C. march. She calls herself an “accidental activist,” spurred to action after “something switched” when Trump was elected. In her post-election shock, she convened a group of 24 peninsula women who are researching how to take action. “I felt like it was my duty to my children to keep progress alive.”

After the election, Stanton called her 23-year-old son and asked if he’d voted. He hadn’t, thinking it wouldn’t matter either way. “I’m embarrassed,” she says. She considers her daughter’s plane ticket an investment in “the democratic process.”

Stanton’s daughter will be just one of many teenagers accompanying their parents to D.C. Claudia Azalde, 16, led a walkout of several hundred students at Lincoln High School in San Jose after the election. “I posted something on Instagram and said, ‘Spread the word, guys.’” She applied to be a youth ambassador for the march, which she’ll attend with her mother, Rose Province, 50. “Even though you can’t vote, you still have the right to say what you think and have a voice,” Azalde says.

Jennifer Allen, right, created ‘Another Nasty Woman’ hats for her daughter Laura (left) and dozens of friends and family. (Photo by Tori Truscheit)

Laura Allen, 18, voted for the first time in November and plans to wear a blue baseball cap with “Another Nasty Woman” embroidered across the top. A double major in English and education and member of the Chi Omega sorority at Oregon State University, she will study for her midterms on the flight back from D.C.

Her mother, Jennifer, 56, the co-owner of PIP Marketing in Palo Alto, distributed 47 of the hats to friends and family. Jennifer says she felt “sucker punched” after the election. “I heard this voice in my head of my mom, who was quite a feisty feminist, saying, ‘You have to make this OK for Laura.’” Before she had children, Jennifer was a member of the National Organization for Women and accompanied her mother, who almost died from an illegal abortion, to actions at family planning clinics. The election “pulled on something from the past,” Jennifer says. “I could hear my mom saying, ‘No one’s going to tell me what to do with my body.’”

If the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress follows through on promises to defund Planned Parenthood, family planning services in Santa Clara County would be directly affected. “What that means, practically, is that Planned Parenthood would be excluded from participating in Medicaid, through which we serve about 85 percent of our patients,” says Lupe Rodriguez, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in San Jose. Some of those patients are covered by Medi-Cal, while others receive coverage from California’s Family PACT program, which receives 9 to 1 matching funds from federal Medicaid. An end to federal funding “would be incredibly devastating locally,” Rodriguez says. Planned Parenthood serves almost 85,000 women, men and children a year in the South Bay, both for reproductive health services and in its two primary care clinics.

Rodriguez fears the impact on women of Trump’s other campaign promises, as well. “Their ability to make choices about their families could be impacted by forced deportation orders, which is very concerning to us,” she says.

Most of the South Bay women with the resources to fly to the D.C. march, almost all of them white and college educated, wouldn’t be affected by Medicaid cuts, nor by threats to repeal Obamacare, register Muslims, or deport undocumented immigrants. For Bayersdorfer, that doesn’t matter. “The rhetoric against women in general and the normalization of hate and violence against anyone who isn’t a white man—that is personal,” she says. “Am I specifically likely to be affected? No. But where do you draw the line?”

The creators of the event, all white women, originally called it the Million Women March, but have since stepped back, giving the reins to women of color and changing the name out of respect to the 1997 march for black women.

Some hope their presence will stand in for those who can’t attend. “We’re lucky to be able to go to D.C.,” says Province. “We’ll be marching in solidarity with everyone else.” Her daughter, Claudia, who identifies as Latina, wishes more people had the resources to attend. “It would be more powerful if we had more people of color going,” she notes.

Kirsty Duncan, 55, a real estate agent with the Sereno Group in Willow Glen, spends her free time supporting homeless women through the nonprofit she co-founded, On Route 22. A budget-slashing Trump administration could have a devastating effect on her housing work. “We had limited resources for a huge problem before,” she says. “I’m terrified of how resources will be distributed now.” She recalls telling the homeless women she works with, “I’m going for all of you, because it’ll be more important than ever to have a voice.”

Organizers hope that more women of color will attend the San Jose march. “That's exactly why we're having these [satellite] marches,” says Jenny Bradanini, an organizer for the San Jose event. “To make it completely inclusive and diverse so everyone has a chance to attend and make their voices heard.” Bradanini says planners are doing “everything we can think of” to make sure that the march is not just “privileged white women.” At their Paint the Town outreach day, volunteers picked up flyers at 14 locations from Milpitas to Morgan Hill to distribute in their communities. Organizers have emailed groups like the Silicon Valley Black Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Foundation to spread the word. “D.C. is a long way away, and we have power in our community here,” Bradanini says.

After the march, most attendees from Silicon Valley intend to continue taking action, but many aren’t quite sure how. “It’s time to become involved in local efforts,” Cartwright says.

Many of the newer activists’ first impulse was to give money to progressive organizations. Burgunder donated instead of giving Christmas gifts, hopes to “invest in solar,” and wants to support the San Jose nonprofit Human Agenda, whose vigil she attended in November. Others, true to their Silicon Valley roots, plan to take action online. Azalde and her high school friends plan to set up a Twitter account with frequently updated action steps that will be “accessible” to people their age.

Nack has joined a Facebook group called Pantsuit Action, based in San Francisco, that sends her a weekly list of tasks: “Here are your senators and their phone numbers, and here’s a script you can read,” she explains—and she does the routine faithfully.

“I have to stay in the game,” she says. “I can’t just bitch and complain.”

Donald Trump has turned off millions of women voters with his offensive comments during the campaign. (Photo by Christopher Penler, via Shutterstock.com)

Can't make it to Washington?

Not everyone has the time and money to make it to the Jan. 21 women’s march in Washington D.C., so here are several more local opportunities for action around the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Saturday, Jan. 14 is a national Day of Action for immigrant and refugee rights. The San Jose rally begins at 11am at City Hall.

The School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza will host STAND! A Day of Art and Solidarity on Monday, Jan. 16, with workshops, music and dance against bigotry starting at 10am.

Planned Parenthood will rally to defend reproductive rights at the Capitol steps in Sacramento at 11:30am on Tuesday, Jan. 17.

Dozens of community groups will stage a protest that starts 11am at Plaza de César Chávez in downtown San Jose on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, and continues with a march to the federal courthouse and a 1pm program inside City Hall. Click here for more information about the event.

The Women's March San Jose will start at San Jose City Hall on Saturday, Jan. 21 at 10am, and end at the Plaza de César Chávez.

53% is a slim majority and it also depends on educational levels. You can slice and dice the pie but only 42% of women voted for Trump, and that would be a minority. And if you want to slice and dice, you’ll find the pro-“birth” movement is also a, albeit loud, minority…

I am reading this article a little more than 2 months since the March.. and wondering if SJoutsidethe bubble is eating his words… Ha..its so 1960s..huh..os that why 5 million people came out, 38 K just in SJ…

News bulletin: The Left just makes up numbers. To the Left, “numbers are narrative”. The SOP for the Left is simply to throw out arcane factoids that cannot be immediately disputed and then forge ahead as if they are Divine revelation, The late Mitch Snyder, “homeless advocate”, once admitted as much: the news media wanted to know how many homeless people there were, so he gave them a number.

38 K in SJ is NOTHING. That’s two Sharks games or a poorly attended 49er game. Or a monster truck rally. Or a mediocre rock band at an outdoor venue.

Nobody cares six months after the fact that you have debunked the Left’s bogus numbers. They’re on to their next bogus narrative.

Avoiding females who are unhappy and/or delusional does not qualify as fear; what it does qualify as is the evolution-based male preference for females who possess traits associated with producing and nurturing babies.

The “women’s movement” fundamentally instructed women how NOT to get along with men and how to seek social fulfillment in gender isolation and narcissism.

Men “fear” being shackled to miserable, inflexible, narcissistic, intolerant, politicized birches. There’s nothing socially engaging about “liberated women”. They’re just downers. I don’t see how other women can even stand them.

This immature, pathetic, juvenile whining has gone on 24/7 since election day, without a break. The new Administration isn’t even in yet, but judgement has already been passed by this all-female know-nothing contingent.

The characters in this article have one thing in common: they do not agree with democracy. They’re trying every which way, by hook and by crook, to overturn the clear choice of the American electorate in a democratic election. The world has never observed such miserable crybabies. If they have any shame, it’s been very well hidden.

I would suggest that these gals take a step back, and allow the victor, Donald J. Trump, the 100-day criticism-free ‘honeymoon’ that a new President has always been given. But that would mean that the bubbleheads interviewed here agree with democracy.

They don’t. They are 100% anti-democratic—and truth be told, if they could, many of them would resort to the cold-blooded murder of America’s choice for President. And if anyone else were to pull that off, they would be cheering from the peanut gallery. Because, see, their feelings are more important than any election.

Grow up, snowflakes! The world doesn’t revolve around you. And the losing side always feels bad after an election. But they take it in stride, and make the best of it. At least, they always have over the past couple of centuries.

But this time the losing side is engaging in a wholesale tantrum unlike anything ever seen before. Even when the Equal Rights Amendment lost, women were mature about it. But like they say, that was then, and this is now. Now they squeal and blubber like a two year-old who didn’t get her way.

‘Despicable’, ‘pathetic’, and ‘immature’ and ‘self-centered’ are just some of the labels they’ve attached to themselves. Can anyone explain what is wrong with these women? It looks like they hate democracy. What else could it possibly be?

But these same women think it would have been super wonderful if the thoroughly corrupt, devious, self-serving, treacherous, and dishonest H.R. Clinton had won this democratic election—so let’s add “hypocrites” to their other sad character traits.

Finished crying for eight years and still no empathy, eh? Thanks for including your opinion with no reference to the last eight years of feces throwing that the previous winners had to “suck it up” about. You seem to have a lovely rewrite of what take it in stride means…

There were no “100 day, criticism free honeymoons” for either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama when they took office. Funny that the GOP always cries foul when anybody employs even a hint of the tactics they’ve flaunted for decades.

That you can ask this question (rhetorically, or not) illustrates a fundamental issue with you and those who share a similar perpective: a shocking lack of knowledge and understanding of American civics and history.

“The Majority” as defined by the U.S. Constitution is a majority in the electoral college. The United States was created to be a representative republic, not a democracy and especially not a ‘direct democracy’.

The popular vote affects the electoral college, but not in terms of being a direct democracy. Other presidents have been elected to office because they won the electoral college, but not the popular vote, including Rutherford Hayes, John Quincy Adams and Benjamin Harrison. This is not a new phenomenon. It predates the Civil War.

The fact that democrats didn’t seem to mind when Bill Clinton was fooling around with a young intern, in the White House, under the same roof where is wife and daughter lived and then lied about it to America but are outraged by words Trump said over a decade ago is proof enough that this really isn’t about anything else but dirty politics.

Why won’t your guy (Obama) disclose his original long form birth certificate? Seems that’s a LOT more important to the nation than a tax return.

And why won’t Obama disclose his grades? If Obama had gotten good grades, his college transcripts would have been engraved on lapel pins and printed on coffee cups and handed out by the millions. We’d never hear the end of it. Even if Obama had earned average grades, they would have been widely reported in the media, chapter and verse.

Instead, Obama’s grades are sealed. There are KGB secrets that aren’t as well kept as Obama’s high school and college transcripts.

And why won’t Hillary share information about who benefits from her so-called ‘charity’? Or about her outside income, when she was Secretary of State?

The deflection over Trump’s tax returns is a deliberate distraction from Obama’s and Hillary’s sub rosa secrets. As Vladimir Lenin said:

“Accuse your enemy of being what you are, of doing what you are doing.”

Actually, they need to gal up. No real man would be caught dead at such a pathetic rally.

And only 200K, out of more than 300 million?? That’s less than .07% of the population—IF they can even get that many. And there will be Trump supporters there, too, even though the media will try to downplay them.

The President-elect isn’t even in office yet—and these people believe they have him all figured out. But if they were that smart, they would have won the election.

Their candidate didn’t lose because of “the Russians” (I LOL! every time I see that deluded excuse.)

HRC lost because she didn’t campaign in Michigan or Wisconsin, and because she felt entitled to win whether she campaigned or not. But most of all, HRC lost because she was such a corrupt, self-serving, dishonest, treacherous, and otherwise flawed candidate that even someone like Donald Trump could beat her.

But wait! I’m starting to head-nod along with the media when I disparage the winner like that. The reality is that Trump never quit. He never gave up. He’s a fighter who disregarded all the nay-sayers and talking heads, and went straight for the opponent’s jugular. He’s… a WINNER.

America loves a winner. These gals will only make themselves a laughingstock in front of the whole country with their impotent protest.

I think Trump will surprise as many people with his Presidential actions as he did with his victory. I think he will go down in history as one of our greatest Presidents—while Obama will surely go down as the worst one.

Sorry that you don’t feel you can count women marching around the country but must look at a single myopic number instead. Your failure to be able to see the protest as an indicator of people who need to be represented and are making their presence felt and heard but must rather take it back to the election is a “my way or the highway” vote is precisely the thinking that drives this country into futility for moving forward as a populace…

Sometimes if it makes you feel better do it. If you believe you are sending a message do it. If you believe something, in the short term, or long term, will be accomplished, even a little from this action, do it. Just remember though, every four years there is ALWAYS a transition of power. Your side lost..it’s now the other side’s turn. It’s called being fair.

So, the comments above are meant to discourage women, to make them feel bad about themselves so we’ll shut up? Don’t hold your breath. We are a force, like bees who have been shut out of the hive. Watch out Trump!!

Nonsense Pat,
This is an open forum and you may scream kick and throw a tantrum as much as you like.
As your collective psychiatrists, we in the hive will have a great time watching the Hilary bees bounce off the windows
trying to escape back to the “Borg Queen Hive”.
I’m sure President Trump is well aware of your poison.

You won’t have a great time doing anything. You will be without health insurance, without a job, without anything but the hate that has kept you going so far. Except with your love object at the helm, you won’t have much to hate any more. I except you guys will ride off into the sunset peacefully, looking for new things to hate.

Nonsense Calmherdown,
I’m having a great time now, Obumber care has nearly bankrupted me, but now I have medicare.
Hate has left my heart, I don’t need Viagra everything works fine. Obama destroyed my job 7 years ago. It’s you the tolerant one’s that are marching in the streets, breaking windows looting stores and beating people up. That’s hate my friend and you people are #1 carriers of that mental disorder.
So light up your bongs while we celebrate the next 8 years of your misery!

You’re having a great time because everything has changed. But in fact nothing has changed yet. Obama is still president. You are just getting ready to celebrate the misery of others — you said it yourself. That’s called hate — when you don’t need a material change in your life to feel better, only the prospect of differentiating yourself from some identifiable other.

Your ‘force’ lost. The majority force won. The problem is that you just can’t accept a democratic election.

Please explain to the adults here how that works. If your flawed cadidate had won, everything would be A-OK. But since you ended up on the losing side, the answer is to throw tantrums like a 2-year old, and try to falsely blame “the Russians” for the way the American electorate voted?

Explain how that works in your world. In the real world you will just have to sit tight for the next four years—and probably for the next 8 years, if you keep trying to tell the majority that they voted the wrong way…

…Oh, and tell that to Bernie’s supporters, too. That’s another reason you’re ‘out of the hive’: HRC cheated, plain and simple. Is there any doubt?

Given that the congress is now trying to ram through killing access to b.c. and abortion, as well as cutting off health care for millions of women and children, it’s awful that the morons who’ve commented here think that this is “whining.” I look at your comments, many of them full of stupidity (e.g. that protesting is undemocratic? Uh, heard of the original Boston Tea Party, idiot???), makes me wonder if they have women in their lives – or have they made those women into doormats? Seriously, guys, I hope you don’t talk to your mothers like you’re talking here.

This is not a “Democracy” it”s “Representative Republic” not run by the tyranny of the majority as the commies like to call it when they lose a popular vote.
Our very wise “Founding Fathers”, AKA “Dead White Men” established the “Electoral College” to keep things fair.

[If HRC had done more leg work and and spent less money, A BILLION DOLLARS!
OMG can you imagine if the Trumpster had spent that much! He bought the election!]

Otherwise the rest of the country would want to secede from California and New York. Beside without the 3 million illegal aliens voting in California you would lose the popular vote too!

Now tell me how many of you HRC supporter changed your vote to Trump because you learned the truth about her cheating ways?

The majority voted for Hillary Clinton. Quit pretending the facts aren’t what they are. Drumpf LOST the popular vote by 3 million. His approval ratings are rock-bottom–30 percent lower than those of his predecessors at this point in their presidency.

Oh, and he’s Putin’s stooge. We’ll all be hearing more about that, I suspect.

Your “popular” vote is very questionable when California and other States make it easy and encourage illegal citizens to vote. We have Obama telling Gina Rodriguez on camera that illegals can vote without consequences because “when you vote, you are a citizen.”

We have other states saying it is racist to ask for identification at the voting booths. Jill Steins recounts proved democratic votes were counted multiple times resulting in more votes than voters. These are actual facts.

I accept Donald Trump’s explanation because it makes sense. He said his goal was to win a majority of Electoral College votes. Some high powered advisers on his payroll told him where to campaign, and he listened. He did it the smart way, no? Because… President-elect!

If his goal was winning the popular vote, he would have campaigned in places like
Chicago and LA. But as he knew, the popular vote totals meant nothing.

On the other hand, Hillary basked in her belief that she was a shoo-in. Her entire campaign boiled down to: ‘It’s time for a woman President.’ (America: ‘Maybe so… but not that woman!’)

She hardly campaigned at all in the final weeks, and when she did, she called half the country ‘deplorable’. Was that smart?

Right now the media is doing its usual job of telling folks what to think. They’re telling people to be angry, to throw juvenile tantrums, to protest democracy, and to blame the voters and ‘the Russians’—instead of blaming their own very flawed candidate.

Um, sport? Trump won NYC and California and a couple of college towns. But besides that in the rest of the United States he beat Hillary by more than 500,000 votes. This is why we have an electoral college, sport so the snarky elites in CA and NYC don’t decide for the rest of the country.

I don’t know why my comment isn’t showing up, but I’ll try it one more time:
The knitted hats referred to in the article are shaped like cat ears — they are not modeled after any portion of the female anatomy. Otherwise, great article!

I have noticed this kind of comments phenomenon a lot recently. There is an army of alt-right trolls out there (mostly from out of state) who spend their time trolling women and/or progressives. Those women and/or progressive are usually too busy with actual actions to hang around and argue back. And guess what, so am I! Over and out!

Maybe it would help to point out that the only reason that women have free speech, and the only reason they are able to be “liberated” (whatever that means in this context) is because men have died to secure them that right.

Women don’t complain about the millions of men who have been killed or maimed in war, who fought in large part to protect women on the home front. Women don’t protest war as a man-killing holocaust; no, they, and society, teach their sons to think of war as glory.

Women don’t complain that only men must register for the draft, and therefore potential death or maiming. The slogan for the liberated woman is “A Woman’s Body, A Woman’s Choice”; but the slogan for men is “A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do.”

Protest Trump as a misogynist. Men fought and died to secure you that right.

Women weren’t >allowed< to fight and die? Is that what you said?!? What is wrong with you Calmerdown !?! Women do not fight as effectively as men (let's grab a couple pugil sticks and I'll show you what I mean) and anyone who thinks otherwise marks themselves as completely ignorant (an adjective, not an insult) of the reality of combat, especially in war. War is absolute brutality. War is killing and violent death. It is not a Demi Moore movie. "G.I. Jane" is a figment of the man-hating misandry of lunatic feminists, those most characteristic of the anti-Trump crowd.

Calmerdown, content yourself with bashing men, having abortions, labeling men as misogynists, but never forget, it is men who safeguard your right to do so.

to Smokey, the troll. Donald Trump did NOT win the election. Hillary got 2.8 million more votes than he did. He has no mandate. Throughout his campaign he behaved like a spoiled child, and that hasn’t changed. He’s a very sick man and pathetically unable to lead the “free world.” NOT MY PRESIDENT. (and Hillary isn’t either!)

Trump is a nasty old man who has a wife who was a former porn star. There is a saying, tell me who your friends are and I will tell you what you are. Most of the people who make comments are just as nasty as he is. T

What does “tolerance” mean to you? Staying quiet? Agreeing with the opposition about everything? Being a potted plant?

Were you “tolerant” of Barack and Michelle? You say you can imagine the outcry if someone had said Michelle was a former porn star. Whoever said that would have been incorrect, as Michelle was not a former porn star. She was a Harvard and Princeton educated lawyer. People did say Michelle was an ‘ape in heels.’ Did you personally engage in an outcry when people said that? Were you out there protesting that the first lady should not be maligned in that fashion? Or were you just a passive observer of someone else’s outcry? Did you agree or disagree with that other outcry?

And now that you have heard Melania being called a former porn star (perhaps with less inaccuracy than ‘ape in heels’ for Michelle), aren’t you personally engaging in an outcry — here and now? If so, then you don’t really have to imagine a similar outcry over Michelle. You are your own example.

It is delusional to condemn a participant on this site for his/her complaint about a recent comment posted here based upon nothing more than a selection of wild and unsubstantiated presumptions regarding the participant’s reactions to a comment made elsewhere (allegedly) years ago.

Based on the post here, CALMHERDOWN lacks the reasoning ability necessary to qualify as an informed and intelligent voter, making him/her exactly the type of voter targeted by the Clinton campaign.

The hits they keep on coming. Keep going, Frustrated and Empty. The things you guys “discover” and decide to “actually call” people are priceless pieces of wisdom! I’ma gonna head to my backyard with a metal detector to see if I can keep up with you guys.

Not sure what you want me to prove, but (a) pretty sure any “proof” would be over your head, and (b) when did you guys ever wait for proof before saying something. In case you missed it, I’m calling you stupid.

She was never a porn star. But Bill Clinton sexually assaulted Eileen Wellstone; Juanita Broaadrick; Paula Jones ( to whom he paid nearly a million dollars in a sexual harassment lawsuit) and at least 18 other women. Stay focused

I march because in 1968 when my father left my mother with 4 small kids there were minimal resources to insure our survival. We were ostracized, lived in a 1 bedroom apartment with bunk beds and I raised my siblings while my mother worked two minimum wages jobs to feed and house us. We lived in an apartment complex with many other “divorcee’s” and our good fortune was the birth of technology where manufacturing plants kept everyone employed with day shift, night shift and swing shift. All of the women worked various shifts and looked after each other’s children. I am proud of the lessons learned from witnessing women united for survival. I am not marching against Trump, I march in support of resources and opportunities for women.

If your father did as you claim he was not a real man, which raises questions about the standards your mother used in selecting a mate, as well as her apparent inability to recognize him as a loser before sticking around to produce so many kids.

There is not, nor will there ever be, a government (not even one run by a black song and dance man or an craggy old witch) that will replace men as the primary resource for the female population. This is something women once understood, which is why they made it their business to raise sons who were responsible and daughters respectable. But what today’s women understand is whatever nonsense is peddled by the culture-destroyers (academia and the media), who just a few decades ago told them they didn’t need a father or traditional value system for their children, while at the same time selling them on the idea that true fulfillment (i.e. endorphins) awaited in the career of their choosing. Now with basements full of their adult offspring who never grew up, medicine cabinets filled with endorphin chasers, and beds warmed by relationship temps, they must haul their aging carcasses out of the rack every morning in service to their only reliable possession, the illusion.

If I want to assert that Trumpy Soprano is not my prez, I will be asserting exactly what you asserted when you asserted Obama was not yours.

You are making a leap to taxes that noone else really understands. This is middle school social studies. There are 3 branches of government. The legislature makes the tax code. The judiciary punishes you if you do not follow the laws. And Trumpy-poo (I have to chuckle writing this) will be the executive. Or something.

As much as Trumped-up and his followers think he is the god of everything (though so far he has demonstrated only that he can be the godzilla of tweeting), neither Trump nor Obama will put you in jail if you don’t pay taxes. The court system will do that.

When you said Obama was not your prez, you were exercising your right to free speech. More power to you! It is a beautiful thing. I haven’t yet asserted that Donald Duck is not my prez – he will have enough trouble convincing people he is prez without my saying so. But if I did assert that, I would be using my right to free speech. Taxes would have nothing to do with it. This country always has been and always will be about more than the President.

There are very few adults here. So respectfully, I think I’m good Smokey. And even the adults here routinely used terms like “Obummer,” “Obamanation,” and “Yomama” to describe the last president and his administration in the last 8 years. They were exercising their free speech rights; so am I. Respectfully, you should apply your recommendations equally — because others of your political stripe routinely kick and scream worse than I do on this same site. As well, your new prez referred to his penis size in a presidential debate. He routinely brought the sophistication of the Fonz to national discourse. Instead of asking him to sleep on his comments, you voted to ensure he would have access to the nuclear codes. Perhaps you should have slept on that decision. So thanks for the schoolmarm-y admonition. But I will continue to insult a very nice cartoon character by referring to the new prez as Donald Duck.

That’s all right. This is your safe space. Your politeness monitor buddies will give you a pass. They want the opposition to elevate their discourse. But you can go ahead and stay in the gutter — they love it.

There is a contradiction between Trump saying he wasn’t really going for the popular vote, and him saying he actually won the popular vote if you subtract the illegals. I believe he has suggested both. Like everything else, he tries to cover all bases and worries about contradictions later, if ever. He is reality TV, not substance.

You are civil and not a name caller — so again, that is much appreciated. But honestly, was there ever a chance you would agree with me or give my thoughts a fair hearing? What you claim is now “beginning” to dawn on you is really just confirmation bias. There never was a snowball’s chance you would ever conclude I was right. So spare me the dramatic narrative showing an evolution in your thoughts over time. There is no burgeoning, slow and steady realization of my alleged lack of understanding. You guys decide within 2 seconds whether somebody is part of your propaganda machine or not part of it. The rest is just filler. The data is never important to you. Spin is.

But honestly, was there ever a chance you would agree with me or give my thoughts a fair hearing? What you claim is now “beginning” to dawn on you is really just confirmation bias. There never was a snowball’s chance you would ever conclude I was right.&etc.

When I posted plenty of evidence showing that the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ scare was scientifically baseless, I could have written the same thing you wrote above.

Here, I just pointed out that Donald Trump said that:

• He didn’t campaign for the popular vote (true), and

• He actually won the popular vote (unprovable either way)…

…without contradicting himself.

One is a statement of something he didn’t do, and the other is something he did.

Apples/oranges; ipso facto no contradiction.

I’m happpy to agree with you and conclude that you’re right, when you’re right.

You are making too many assumptions about women’s ability to fight, my gender, or the relevance of your arguments.

This started with you arguing that men, not women, fought and died to get everyone the right to free speech. Hence my response that unlike today, women were not allowed to join the military at the time you are likely mentioning. That in turn spun you up into an aside about women’s physical abilities compared to men. Not really where I was going — since we started with whether women should be guilted into appreciating their gender’s non-involvement in a fight they were not allowed to be involved in.

As regards your aside — sure, on average men and women have different levels of muscle mass. Can that make a difference in hand to hand combat (though a lot of combat is not hand to hand)? Yes, of course it can. Although as someone who has boxed before, I can tell you that muscle mass is not necessarily correlated to power in any kind of striking combat — rather, leverage (which has more to do with flexibility and strength/weight ratio) is. Still, most real fights have more grappling and dirty tricks than clean striking — and size and muscle absolutely do make a difference, yes.

But are women incapable of functioning in the military, and are all women unsuited for combat? I don’t think the US military would have a place for women today if that were true. The differences between men and women are averages. Ronda Rousey can knock out many male GIs. Your conclusions are too general.

You are getting a little off into the weeds here and off topic a bit but if it’s all about leverage and flexibility, why are there weight classes in boxing and other combative sports? As well, last I checked Ronda Rousey couldn’t even knock out her last female opponent so I seriously doubt that any “apex” female could knock out any “apex” G.I.

Where are all these women getting all this time and money to go back to Washington DC to screech at the new President? Do ex-husbands pay that well?

You’re right that this is off in the weeds a bit. But since you asked, I’m not talking about apex vs. apex. Military combat is not Wonder Woman vs. Batman in every case. The question is can a woman successfully serve in the military — contribute and protect our country. Wonder Woman probably could, because not all of the opposition is Batman. Ronda Rousey may have been beaten recently, but she could still hold her own in a fight.

Re weight classes in boxing, in the old days boxers did not lift. They thought it ruined their flexibility. With the advent of roids, somehow boxers are able to bulk up without ruining their flexibility — so yes, nowadays they do lift. Most people just tune into boxing for the heavyweights, if at all. But you can see this more clearly in the lower weight classes. Look at a fighter like Felix Trinidad, or like Alexis Arguello. Trinidad had tremendous power for a relatively skinny guy. Look at the Trinidad vs. Fernando Vargas fight. Trinidad rocked Vargas with a few of his punches, even though Vargas is a more muscular guy. But even in the heavyweight classes, boxers do not get to the top without knowing how to use body mechanics for power. People think of Tyson as a muscular guy, and he was (probably popped roids too). But the fact is — he fought and beat a lot of guys (like Frank Bruno) who were much bigger and more muscular. Tyson had tremendous body mechanics — could twist and turn like no one else. Had a lot of core flexibility, which allowed him to put tremendous torque into his hooks and upper cuts. The torque created the power, combined with bone mass — even more so than the muscle, which just helps the hands get from point to point. But yes, size matters in another sense — a guy with more bone mass will have an advantage. That’s why you have different weight classes.

We’ll never agree on women and war and while I am no tough guy I will put my life experience with violence up against anyone’s and while Ronda Rousey may be able to throw a punch, I have no doubt she will never be able to take one as well as even an average man. …but back on track.

What are all these hysterical screeching shrews going to do when Trump gets into office and the economy improves; job growth increases; there are no jack-booted thugs kicking in doors and loading millions of illegal Mexicans en masse into southbound trains; and when my health insurance goes from $900 a month back to $250?

Not sure I agree with your premises on the forecasted improvement, or on whether women who did not support Trump are “hysterical screeching shrews.” But to humor your point, if Trump brings positive change, I expect that those who are not open-minded will find fault regardless of what he does. And those who are open-minded perhaps will change their mind. What’s it going to take? An open-minded and truthful evaluation. And that’s part of my problem with Trump. He is all spin and salesmanship. So will he sell what he does accurately? More importantly, will he bring positive change? For the sake of our country, I certainly hope he does. I haven’t been sold so far. But as your much-hated shrew Hillary Clinton said — “he deserves an open mind and a chance to lead.”

“It’s pretty lonely in product development. There’s a lot of unconscious bias,” she says. “Male engineers don’t mean to be exclusionary, but women drop out of those fields.”

Coding is isolating. Women are socialized to want human interaction during the day. Women are much more suited — by upbringing — to management, marketing, and sales, than to staring at a screen for 14 hours a day.

Is there a way for people to keep their tangential verbal assaults between themselves? Something like private mail? Are these things you would say to a person’s face?
The distasteful name-calling does not advance the discussion. Rather, it is distracting and off-putting.
Thank you.

“Besides repealing Obamacare, which provides 47 million women with access to health insurance” How is that true, when:
“On the basis of information about 2015 enrollment and information available as of the end of December 2015 on 2016 enrollment, CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that about 11 million people per month, on average, will receive such subsidies in calendar year 2016. Additionally, the agencies project that about 2 million people who are not eligible for subsidies will purchase coverage through an exchange, bringing the total number of people enrolled in coverage through exchanges in any given month to 13 million, on average…”

George SOROS drives a lot of this SJW-BLM LGBTQ-Feminazi, la RAZA activity to make riots so bad and make the police look so bad that he will bring in the UN GLOBAL police force called the Strong Cities Initiative. SOROS is a Jew who was a Nazi collaborator who sold out his fellow Jews. He works for the Globalists and had deliberately wrecked other nations and he’s in the process of wrecking the USA and is behind running ads and funds these marches. He has numerous NGOs and he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest. SOROS is a Criminal working for the UN Globalists and is determined and he and they along with the ROTHSCHILDs BAnksters are determined to destroy this nation and will stop at nothing to achieve this.

If there are legitimate beefs, well and good and women should be able to work in IT etc and if docs can pass out Viagra like its candy, women should still be able to access reproductive care and birth control. I don’t think they should have to back to coat hanger days either but the abortion number is out of control and there should be more responsibility and birth control at times has failed.

As a warning, the GLOBALISTs are determined to destroy the USA. Their other goals are Mass DEPOPULATiON ( check out the GEORGIA GUIDESTONES, Ted Turner, Henry Kissinger, Prof Erik Pianka and other Globalists). The Globalists are pushing to cause WW3 and are also behind the LGBTQ because they don’t want people to have children & they are Anti family & this LGBTQ is heavily pushed in our schools) and MICROcHIPPING the remaining enslaved population for s CASHLESS aglobsl Monetary System.—— AGENDA 21 and the UN is another goal and is well under way which is the plan to on a GLOBAL scale drive most people off most of the land and cram them into super high-density regional city-state zones.—–The Globalists through their media had a movie about the HUNGER GAMES. Remember that movie? They aren’t kidding around. All the talk about Sustainable Development, Smart Cities, Smart Growth, Urban Villages, Regionalism and Transit villages are key words behind AGENDA 21. Travel will also be seriously restricted hense all the focus on only walking, riding bikes, rail and Driverless cars will be permitted. Check out ROSA KOIRE. She’s very active against Agenda 21 and she can easily found when Googled or on You Tube.

In San Jose, Agenda 21 is called either Envision San Jose 2030 or 2040 and for the Bay Area, it’s called 1 Bay Area.

Also, Agenda 21 is about collecting TAXES to “fight” Global Warming-Climate Change. These TAXES are called Greenhouse, Cap N Trade, Carbon Footprint and Value-added taxes. The REALITY is: These TAXES will be used to fund a GLOBAL GOVERNMENT and has nothing to do with fighting CLIMATE Change.

Even POPE FRANCIS called for a GLOBAL Government to fight Climate Change-Global Warming.

Finally, the WEATHER is being controlled through HAARP and CHEM TRAILS and here’s even the Chicago Mercsntile Exchange where people BET on the Weather—Keep this in mind when the Globalists demand Taxes & Global Government to combat Climate Change-Global Warming.

Also, the Global Elites live in multiple spacious mansions and travel around the world in their private jets and yachts but they want us living in MICRO Apartments not much larger than jail cells with tightly controlled Travel. And oh yea, they want us to our protein from eating only BUGs and they’re even going to control our caloric intake. Sounds like a good plan, eh?

Think about this as you precious snowflakes actually March for George SOROS and the Globalists who want most of Humanity DEAD and the survivors as nothing but MICROCHIPPED slaves.

Also beware of the INTERNET of THINGS which will be part of the control & Surveillance. Alexa is part of this.

Also beware of those new goggle devices by Mark Zuckerberg. The Globalists also want to control your reality.

Notice how they say “IMMIGRATION” again. The real goal is Destabalization and to End the sovereignty of the USA and merge the USA with Canada and Mexico. This is called the NORTH AMERICAN UNION (NAU)

This NAU is being piggybacked on RECONQUISTA-AZTLAN which is taught in USA higher-grade schools through chapters of La RAZA (the Race) and the plan is to reclaim the former Mexican territory ranging from the states of CA to CO-TX.

Outside of cheap labor, This is why there are so many Sanctuary cities and so many USA politicians at all government levels who keep their lips superglued to the rumps of Illegal Aliens and all those Enemies who Demand that USA borders remain Unsecured and USA immigration laws remain Unenforced

Again, the Globalists are also behind this as one of their goals is to end the Sovereignty of ALL nations and merge them into blocs. The first was the EUROPEAN UNION and were next with the NAU

Finally, sorry to hit this up, but there’s also DISRUPT J20 to watch out for and BILL AYERS is behind this and you can probably bet SOROS and the Globalists are as well.

TRUMP: Time will tell how he works out. He’s not perfect either. Give him a chance and if he’s just as bad as the others, then he needs to face complaints like everyone else. I’m very skeptical of some of his advisor picks. Also when he said he was going to Drain the Swamp, I didn’t expect some of his advisor picks who seem to be from the Swamp. hmm. I also read the Henry Makow website and it says to beware of him, so time will tell

I didn’t flee CA but I am trying to fight back in my own way with writing-calling various people, trying to inform others what’s really going on, I write put signs on poles and I also wrote that RAZA traitor rat, SJPD chief, Eddie Garcia from whom I naturally got no reply but at least they know there are people like me who won’t go along with the NAU-Reconquista-Aztlan Globalist program. Maybe I’ll lose but at least I can look in the mirror and say I tried.